Was on course for top-15 ranking: Teen shuttler Lakshya Sen counts losses amid COVID-19 lockdown

With 5 titles below his belt, Lakshya Sen was racing in direction of the highest echelons of worldwide badminton earlier than his gorgeous run was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced all aggressive motion to a halt internationally.

With the world in lockdown to comprise the lethal illness, Lakshya too is enduring the unsure instances throughout the confines of his condo, close to the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) in Bengaluru.

“I was looking forward to play big tournaments, compete against better players and try to make it to top 15 this year. But then everything stopped suddenly, all tournaments suspended. Now I don’t know when they will resume,” Lakshya instructed PTI.

The 18-year-old from Uttarakhand was in sensational kind within the senior circuit final yr as he claimed as many as 5 titles, together with two BWF World Tour Super 100 high honours — SaarLorLux Open and Dutch Open — to zoom to 32nd rank by the tip of the yr.

He is presently positioned 27th on the earth rankings.

He continued his good run early this yr, claiming an enormous win over Asian Games gold-medallist Jonathan Christie of Indonesia on the Badminton Asia Team Championships after which placing up a formidable present towards former world champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark within the second spherical of the All England Championships.

Lakshya was trying ahead to the Swiss Open (March 17-22) however All England turned out to be the final event earlier than the BWF suspended all motion.

In truth, he was in the course of the event when authorities’s journey restrictions got here into power.

“I had a match to play (second round) when the Ministry had announced travel restrictions. I didn’t think much about it but by the time I had played my match, BWF had cancelled the tournaments.

“So, we booked tickets and returned. Initially our plans was to go to Swiss from there,” mentioned the soft-spoken Indian.

Lakhsya has been at house since returning to the nation and has his household with him.

He has received the corporate of his mom, his brother Chirag Sen, who can be a global shuttler, and father D Okay Sen, who has been teaching on the PPBA after taking voluntary retirement from the Sports Authority of India.

In a bid to retain the enjoyable of enjoying the game, the Sen household determined to filter out an space within the drawing room.

“I believe something is better than nothing. So we have removed the dining table and other furniture in the drawing room to create some space for them to play for fun, at least they can have a feel of the racquet in hand,” the senior Sen mentioned.

“Sometimes they work on net play, or just work on service because you can’t play shots like tosses or smashes inside the room, in this little space.” Was he impressed with Lakshya’s sport towards Viktor?

“Well, he was playing well in All England but he made some mistakes in crucial points. I believe he will need to show more maturity when he takes on big and experienced players,” he mentioned in a quite dispassionate evaluation.

With courts out of sure, Lakshya and Chirag are additionally attempting to maintain themselves match.

“We train for sometime in morning and evening, we do exercises like skipping, body weight, core workout, agility training and some wall exercises. We are given weekly schedule from the academy,” Lakshya mentioned.

“Rest of the time, we watch movies and play games on playstation. I do feel restless a bit because there is not much we can do but training helps. “It is after a pretty long time that I have got this break, generally when you are injured you get such a break,” he signed off.